SPEECH AT A CONFERENCE OF CADRES IN THE SHANSI-SUIYUAN LIBERATED
AREA

Comrades! Today I wish to speak chiefly on some problems relating to our
work in the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated Area and also on some problems relating
to our work in the country as a whole.

I

In my opinion, the work of land reform and of Party consolidation carried
out during the past year in the area led by the Shansi-Suiyuan Sub-Bureau
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has been successful.

This can be viewed from two aspects. On the one hand, the Shansi-Suiyuan
Party organization has combated Right deviations, initiated mass struggles
and has completed, or is completing, the land reform and the Party consolidation
among two million several hundred thousand people out of the area's total
population of over three million. On the other hand, it has also corrected
several "Left" deviations which occurred in these campaigns and has thereby
put its entire work on the path of sound development. It is from these two
aspects that I consider the work of land reform and of Party consolidation
in the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated Area to have been successful.

"From now on," the people of the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated Area are saying,
"no one will ever again dare to be feudalist, to bully others or indulge
in corruption." That is their conclusion about our work of land reform and
Party consolidation. When they say, "No one will ever again dare to be
feudalist," they mean that we have led them in initiating struggles through
which the system of feudal exploitation in the new Liberated Areas and its
remnants in the old and semi-old Liberated Areas have been or are being
destroyed. When they say, "No one will ever again dare to bully others or
indulge in corruption," they refer to the serious phenomenon of a certain
degree of impurity in the class composition and style of work in our Party
and government organizations that existed in the past. A number of bad elements
had sneaked into the Party and government organizations; a number of individuals
had developed a bureaucratic style of work, abused their power and bullied
the people, employed methods of coercion and commandism to get things done,
thereby arousing discontent among the masses, or had indulged in corruption
or encroached upon the interests of the masses. However, after a year's work
of land reform and Party consolidation, these conditions have been fundamentally
changed.

One of the comrades present told me, "We have rid ourselves of what would
have proved fatal to us. We have acquired things we never had before." By
"fatal" he meant the serious phenomenon of impurity in the class composition
and style of work in Party and government organizations and the resultant
discontent among the masses. This phenomenon has now been fundamentally
eliminated. By "things we never had before but have now acquired" he meant
the poor peasant leagues, the new peasant associations, the district and
village people's representative conferences and the new atmosphere that prevails
in the countryside as a result of the work of land reform and Party
consolidation.

These comments, I think, give a true picture of how matters stand.

Such is the great success of the work of land reform and Party consolidation
in the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated Area. This is the first aspect of the success.
It was on this basis that during the past year the Shansi-Suiyuan Party
organization was able to perform war services on an immense scale in support
of the great People's War of Liberation. Without our successful work in land
reform and Party consolidation, it would have been difficult to fulfil such
immense military tasks.

On the other hand, the Shansi-Suiyuan Party organization has corrected several
"Left" deviations which occurred in the course of its work. There were three
main deviations of this kind. First, in a number of places, in the process
of identifying class status a number of working people were wrongly classified
as landlords or rich peasants, although they engaged in no feudal exploitation
or in only a little exploitation; the scope of attack was thus mistakenly
broadened; and a most important strategic principle was forgotten, namely,
that in the land reform we can and must unite about 92 per cent of the households
or about 90 per cent of the population in the villages, in other words, unite
all the rural working people to establish a united front against the feudal
system. Now this deviation has been corrected. Consequently, people are very
much reassured and the revolutionary united front has been consolidated.
Secondly, in the land reform work, the industrial and commercial enterprises
of landlords and rich peasants were encroached upon; in the struggle to uncover
counter-revolution in the economic field, the prescribed scope of investigation
was overstepped; and in tax policy, industry and commerce were harmed. These
were the "Left" deviations in dealing with industry and commerce. Now they,
too, have been corrected, and so industry and commerce can recover and develop.
Thirdly, in the fierce struggles in the land reform of the past year, the
Shansi-Suiyuan Party organization failed to adhere unequivocally to the Party's
policy of strictly forbidding beating and killing without discrimination.
As a result, in certain places some landlords and rich peasants were needlessly
put to death, and the bad elements in the rural areas were able to exploit
the situation to take revenge and foully murdered a number of working people.
We consider it absolutely necessary and proper to sentence to death, through
the people's courts and the democratic governments, those major criminals
who have actively and desperately opposed the people's democratic revolution
and sabotaged the land reform, that is, the most heinous counter-revolutionaries
and local tyrants. If this were not done, democratic order could not be
established. We must, however, forbid the killing without discrimination
of ordinary personnel on the Kuomintang side, the common run of landlords
and rich peasants and lesser offenders. Moreover, in trying criminals, a
people's court or democratic government must not use physical violence.
Deviations of this kind which occurred in the past year in the Shansi-Suiyuan
area have likewise been corrected.

Now that all these deviations have been corrected in earnest, we can say
on good evidence that the entire work under the leadership of the Shansi-Suiyuan
Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee is on the path of sound development.

The most fundamental method of work which all Communists must firmly bear
in mind is to determine our working policies according to actual conditions.
When we study the causes of the mistakes we have made, we find that they
all arose because we departed from the actual situation at a given time and
place and were subjective in our working policies. This should be a lesson
for all comrades.

As for the consolidation of Party organizations at the primary level, you
have drawn upon the experience of Pingshan County in the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei
Liberated Area in accordance with the Central Committee's directive on the
work of land reform and Party consolidation in the old and semi-old Liberated
Areas;[1] that is, you have invited activists from
the non-Party masses to participate in Party branch meetings, unfolded criticism
and self-criticism in order to remove the impurities in the class composition
and style of work in Party organizations and enabled the Party to forge closer
ties with the masses. This will enable you to accomplish the whole job of
consolidating Party organizations in a sound way.

Those Party members and cadres who have made mistakes but can still be educated
and are different from the incorrigibles should all be educated and not
abandoned, whatever their class origin. It is likewise correct that you have
carried out, or are carrying out, this policy.

In the struggle against the feudal system, the experience of setting up people's
representative conferences at district and village (or township) levels on
the basis of the poor peasant leagues and peasant associations is extremely
valuable. The only true people's representative conference is one based on
the will of really broad masses of the people. It is now possible for such
people's representative conferences to emerge in all the Liberated Areas.
Such a conference, once set up, should become the local organ of people's
power, and all due authority must be vested in it and in the government council
it elects. The poor peasant league and the peasant association will then
become its helping hands. At one time we thought of setting up people's
representative conferences in the rural districts only after the land reform
had been completed in the main. Now that your own experience and that of
other Liberated Areas have proved that it is possible and necessary to set
up these people's representative conferences and their elected government
councils at the district and village levels in the midst of the struggle
for the land reform, that is the way you should continue to do it. All the
Liberated Areas should do likewise. After the conferences have been generally
set up at district and village levels, they can be established at the county
level. When people's representative conferences are established up to the
county level, it will be easy to set them up at higher levels. In people's
representative conferences at various levels we must, wherever possible,
include representatives of all democratic strata -- workers, peasants,
independent craftsmen, professionals, intellectuals, national bourgeois
industrialists and merchants and enlightened gentry. Of course, it should
not be done mechanically; we should distinguish between rural areas with
towns and rural areas without towns, among towns of different sizes and between
cities and rural areas, so as to fulfil naturally, and not mechanically,
the task of uniting all democratic strata.

The great mass struggles for land reform and Party consolidation have taught
and brought to the fore tens of thousands of activists and cadres. They are
linked with the masses and will be a most precious asset of the People's
Republic of China. Henceforth, we should strengthen their education so that
they will make constant progress in their work. Meanwhile they should be
warned not to let success and commendation make them conceited and
self-satisfied.

In view of all this, in view of the successes in these various respects,
we can say that the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated Area is now more consolidated
than ever before. Other Liberated Areas which have worked along the same
lines have likewise become consolidated.

II

As far as leadership is concerned, the successes of the Shansi-Suiyuan Liberated
Area are due mainly to the following causes:

1. Helped by the work done by Comrade Kang Sheng in the administrative village
of Hochiapo in Linhsien County last spring and summer, the Shansi-Suiyuan
Sub-Bureau held a conference of secretaries of prefectural Party committees
last June. The conference criticized Right deviations which had existed in
past work, thoroughly exposed the serious phenomenon of various departures
from the Party line and decided on the policy of starting the land reform
and Party consolidation in earnest. In the main, the conference was a success.
Without it, land reform and Party consolidation on such a scale could not
have been successful. The shortcomings of the conference were that it failed
to decide on working policies varying with the different conditions in the
old, semi-old and new Liberated Areas; that on the question of identifying
class status it adopted an ultra-Left policy; that on the question of how
to destroy the feudal system it laid too much stress on unearthing the landlords'
hidden property; and that on the question of dealing with the demands of
the masses it failed to make a sober analysis and raised the sweeping slogan,
"Do everything as the masses want it done". With respect to the latter point,
which is a question of the Party's relationship with the masses, the Party
must lead the masses to carry out all their correct ideas in the light of
the circumstances and educate them to correct any wrong ideas they may entertain.
The conference only emphasized that the Party should carry out the ideas
of the masses but neglected to point out that the Party should also educate
and lead the masses, and thus eventually exerted a wrong influence on the
comrades in some districts and aggravated their mistakes of tailism.

2. In January this year the Shansi-Suiyuan Sub-Bureau took proper measures
to correct the "Left" deviations. These measures were carried out after the
comrades of the Sub-Bureau returned from the December meeting of the Central
Committee.[2] For this purpose the Sub-Bureau issued
a five-point directive.[3] These corrective measures
were so well adapted to the wishes of the masses and were carried out with
such speed and thoroughness that almost all the "Left" deviations were rectified
within a short time.

III

The line of leadership of the Shansi-Suiyuan Party organization during the
War of Resistance Against Japan was basically correct. This was shown in
the reduction of rent and interest; in the substantial restoration and
development of agricultural production, home spinning and weaving, war industries
and some light industries; in the laying of the foundation of Party
organizations; and in the establishment of a democratic government and of
people's armed forces numbering nearly a hundred thousand men. All this work
formed the basis on which we victoriously fought the War of Resistance and
repelled the attacks of Yen Hsi-shan and other reactionaries. Of course,
the Party and the government during that period had their shortcomings; as
is now entirely clear to us all, these consisted in a certain degree of impurity
in class composition and style of work, which had undesirable effects on
our work. But, taken as a whole, the work during the War of Resistance was
fruitful. We were thus provided with favourable conditions for defeating
Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary attacks after the Japanese surrender.
The shortcomings or mistakes of the leadership of the Shansi-Suiyuan Party
organization during the War of Resistance consisted mainly in the failure
to rely on the broadest masses to overcome a certain degree of impurity in
class composition and style of work in Party and government organizations
and the undesirable effect it had on the work. That task is left for you
to fulfil now. One reason for that situation was that certain leading comrades
in Shansi and Suiyuan then lacked understanding of a number of the actual
conditions concerning the Party and the masses. This should also be a lesson
to the comrades.

IV

The task before the Shansi-Suiyuan Party organization is to make the greatest
effort to complete the land reform and Party consolidation, to continue and
support the People's War of Liberation, to refrain from any further increase
in the people's burden but appropriately to lighten it, and to restore and
develop production. You are now holding a conference on production. For the
next few years the aim of restoring and developing production will be to
improve the people's livelihood on the one hand and to support the People's
War of Liberation on the other. You have a widespread agriculture and handicraft
industry as well as some light and heavy industries using machinery. I hope
you will do a good job in leading these productive enterprises, otherwise
you cannot be called good Marxists. In agriculture, those labour-exchange
teams and co-operatives, [4] which were in the
grip of bureaucrats and which harmed the people instead of benefiting them,
have all collapsed. This is entirely understandable and should occasion no
regret. Your task is carefully to preserve and develop those labour-exchange
teams, co-operatives and other necessary economic organizations that have
won mass support and to spread them everywhere.

V

The national situation is a matter of concern for our comrades. Following
the Party's National Land Conference last year, which resolved to adopt a
new policy and unfold land reform and Party consolidation, large conferences
of cadres were held in practically all the Liberated Areas on Party consolidation
and land reform. At these conferences, Rightist ideas existing in the Party
were criticized, and the serious phenomenon of a certain degree of impurity
in the Party's class composition and style of work was exposed. Afterwards,
appropriate measures were taken in many areas, and the "Left" deviations
have been or are being corrected. Thus, confronted with the new political
situation and new political tasks, our Party has been able to set its work
in the whole country on the path of sound development. In the last few months
almost all the People's Liberation Army has made use of the intervals between
battles for large-scale training and consolidation. This has been carried
out in a fully guided, orderly and democratic way. It has therefore aroused
the revolutionary fervour of the great masses of commanders and fighters,
enabled them clearly to comprehend the aim of the war, eliminated certain
incorrect ideological tendencies and undesirable manifestations in the army,
educated the cadres and fighters and greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness
of the army. From now on, we must continue to carry on this new type of
ideological education movement in the army, a movement which has a democratic
and mass character. You can see clearly that neither the Party consolidation,
nor the ideological education in the army, nor the land reform, all of which
we have accomplished and all of which have great historic significance, could
be undertaken by our enemy, the Kuomintang. On our part, we have been very
earnest in correcting our own shortcomings; we have united the Party and
army virtually as one man and forged close ties between them and the masses
of the people; we are effectively carrying out all the policies and tactics
formulated by the Central Committee of our Party and are successfully waging
the People's War of Liberation. With our enemy, everything is just the opposite.
They are so corrupt, so torn by ever-increasing and irreconcilable internal
quarrels, so spurned by the people and utterly isolated and so frequently
defeated in battle that their doom is inevitable. This is the whole situation
of revolution versus counter-revolution in China.

In this situation, all comrades must firmly grasp the general line of the
Party, that is, the line of the new-democratic revolution. The new-democratic
revolution is not any other revolution, but can only be and must be a revolution
against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism waged by the broad
masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat. This means
that leadership in this revolution can and must be assumed by no class and
party other than the proletariat and the Communist Party of China. This means
that the united front of those joining this revolution is very broad, embracing
the workers, peasants, independent craftsmen, professionals, intellectuals,
the national bourgeoisie and the section of the enlightened gentry which
has broken away from the landlord class. All these are what we refer to as
the broad masses of the people. The state and the government to be founded
by the broad masses of the people will be the People's Republic of China
and the democratic coalition government of the alliance of all democratic
classes under the leadership of the proletariat. The enemies to be overthrown
in this revolution can only be and must be imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucrat-capitalism. The concentrated expression of all these enemies is
the reactionary regime of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang.

Feudalism is the ally of imperialism and bureaucrat-capitalism and the foundation
of their rule. Therefore, the reform of the land system is the main content
of China's new-democratic revolution. The general line in the land reform
is to rely on the poor peasants, unite with the middle peasants, abolish
the system of feudal exploitation step by step and in a discriminating way,
and develop agricultural production. The basic force to be relied upon in
the land reform can only be and must be the poor peasants. Together with
the farm labourers, they make up about 70 per cent of China's rural population.
The main and immediate task of the land reform is to satisfy the demands
of the masses of poor peasants and farm labourers. In the land reform it
is necessary to unite with the middle peasants; the poor peasants and the
farm labourers must form a solid united front with the middle peasants, who
account for about 20 per cent of the rural population. Otherwise, the poor
peasants and farm labourers will find themselves isolated and the land reform
will fail. One of the tasks in the land reform is to satisfy the demands
of certain middle peasants. A section of the middle peasants must be allowed
to keep some land over and above the average obtained by the poor peasants.
We support the peasants' demand for equal distribution of land in order to
help arouse the broad masses of peasants speedily to abolish the system of
landownership by the feudal landlord class, but we do not advocate absolute
equalitarianism. Whoever advocates absolute equalitarianism is wrong. There
is a kind of thinking now current in the countryside which undermines industry
and commerce and advocates absolute equalitarianism in land distribution.
Such thinking is reactionary, backward and retrogressive in nature. We must
criticize it. The target of the land reform is only and must be the system
of feudal exploitation by the landlord class and by the old-type rich peasants,
and there should be no encroachment either upon the national bourgeoisie
or upon the industrial and commercial enterprises run by the landlords and
rich peasants. In particular, care must be taken not to encroach upon the
interests of the middle peasants, independent craftsmen, professionals and
new rich peasants, all of whom engage in little or no exploitation. The aim
of the land reform is to abolish the system of feudal exploitation, that
is, to eliminate the feudal landlords as a class, not as individuals. Therefore
a landlord must receive the same allotment of land and property as does a
peasant and must be made to learn productive labour and join the ranks of
the nation's economic life. Except for the most heinous counter-revolutionaries
and local tyrants, who have incurred the bitter hatred of the broad masses,
who have been proved guilty and who therefore may and ought to be punished,
a policy of leniency must be applied to all, and any beating or killing without
discrimination must be forbidden. The system of feudal exploitation should
be abolished step by step, that is, in a tactical way. In launching the struggle
we must determine our tactics according to the circumstances and the degree
to which the peasant masses are awakened and organized. We must not attempt
to wipe out overnight the whole system of feudal exploitation. In accordance
with the actual conditions of the system of feudal exploitation in China's
villages, the total scope of attack in the land reform should generally not
exceed about 8 per cent of the rural households or about 10 per cent of the
rural population. In the old and semi-old Liberated Areas the percentage
should be even smaller. It is dangerous to depart from actual conditions
and mistakenly enlarge the scope of attack. In the new Liberated Areas, moreover,
it is necessary to distinguish between different places and different stages.
By distinguishing between places we mean that in those places which we can
hold securely we should concentrate our efforts on carrying out appropriate
land reform work that accords with the wishes of the local masses, while
in those places which for the time being are difficult to hold securely,
until there is a change in the situation we should not be in a hurry to start
the land reform but should confine ourselves to activities which are feasible
and beneficial to the masses in the present circumstances. By distinguishing
between stages we mean that in places recently occupied by the People's
Liberation Army we should put forward and carry out the tactics of neutralizing
the rich peasants, of neutralizing the middle and small landlords, and thus
narrow the scope of the attack so as to destroy only the reactionary Kuomintang
armed forces and deal blows at the bad gentry and local tyrants. We should
concentrate all our efforts on accomplishing this task as the first stage
of work in the new Liberated Areas. We should then advance step by step to
the stage of total abolition of the feudal system, in accordance with the
rising level of political consciousness and organization of the masses. In
the new Liberated Areas we should distribute movable property and land only
when conditions are relatively secure and the overwhelming majority of the
masses have been fully roused to action; to act otherwise would be adventurist
and undependable and would do harm rather than good. In the new Liberated
Areas the experience gained during the War of Resistance must be fully utilized.
By abolishing feudalism in a discriminating way we mean that we should
distinguish between landlords and rich peasants, among big, middle and small
landlords and between those landlords and rich peasants who are local tyrants
and those who are not, and that, subject to the major premise of the equal
distribution of land and the abolition of the feudal system, we should not
decide on and give the same treatment to them all, but should differentiate
and vary the treatment according to varying conditions. When we do this,
people will see that our work is completely reasonable. The development of
agricultural production is the immediate aim of the land reform. Only by
abolishing the feudal system can the conditions for such development be created.
In every area, as soon as feudalism is wiped out and the land reform is
completed, the Party and the democratic government must put forward the task
of restoring and developing agricultural production, transfer all available
forces in the countryside to this task, organize cooperation and mutual aid,
improve agricultural technique, promote seed selection and build irrigation
works -- all to ensure increased production. Party organizations in the rural
areas must devote the greatest energy to restoring and developing agricultural
production and also industrial production in small towns. In order to speed
up this restoration and development, we must do our utmost, in the course
of our struggle for the abolition of the feudal system, to preserve all useful
means of production and of livelihood, take resolute measures against anyone's
destroying or wasting them, oppose extravagant eating and drinking and pay
attention to thrift and economy. In order to develop agricultural production,
we must advise the peasants to organize, voluntarily and step by step, the
various types of producers' and consumers' co-operatives based on private
ownership, which are permissible under present economic conditions. The abolition
of the feudal system and the development of agricultural production will
lay the foundation for the development of industrial production and the
transformation of an agricultural country into an industrial one. This is
the ultimate goal of the new-democratic revolution.

You comrades know that our Party has laid down the general line and general
policy of the Chinese revolution as well as various specific lines for work
and specific policies. However, while many comrades remember our Party's
specific lines for work and specific policies, they often forget its general
line and general policy. If we actually forget the Party's general line and
general policy, then we shall be blind, half-baked, muddle-headed
revolutionaries, and when we carry out a specific line for work and a specific
policy, we shall lose our bearings and vacillate now to the left and now
to the right, and the work will suffer.

Let me repeat:

The revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism waged
by the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat
-- this is China's new-democratic revolution, and this is the general line
and general policy of the Communist Party of China at the present stage of
history.

To rely on the poor peasants, unite with the middle peasants, abolish the
system of feudal exploitation step by step and in a discriminating way, and
develop agricultural production -- this is the general line and general policy
of the Communist Party of China in the work of land reform during the period
of the new-democratic revolution.

NOTES

1. Issued on February 1948, this directive of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China summed up the experience of work
in the land reform and Party consolidation in various Liberated Areas, laid
down a series of policies and methods for the land reform and Party consolidation
and stressed the correction of "Left" deviations which had occurred during
the execution of these two tasks in certain areas.

2. See the introductory note to "The Present Situation
and Our Tasks", pp. 158-59 of this volume.

3. This refers to the "Directive on Correcting Mistakes
in the Determination of Class Status and on Uniting with the Middle Peasants"
issued by the Shansi-Suiyuan Sub-Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China on January 13, 1948. The directive is divided into five sections.
The following are its main points:

(1) Because the criteria for class identification had not been well-defined,
quite a few persons were wrongly classified as bankrupt landlords or rich
peasants on the spontaneous demands of the peasants, and in particular,
well-to-do middle peasants were wrongly classified as rich peasants. This
had an adverse effect on the effort to unite with the middle peasants and
was wrong.

(2) Proper measures were to be taken resolutely to persuade the peasants
to correct these mistakes. Suitable restitution was to be made of property
that had been taken.

(3) It was to be explained to the peasants and the cadres that the only criterion
in class identification should be the relationship of exploitation. Mistakes
in determining class status were to be corrected.

(4) The principle of relying on poor peasants and farm labourers and uniting
with middle peasants had to be grasped. The middle peasants were to be enabled
to have one-third of the members of the peasant representative conferences
and of the leading bodies of the peasant associations, and consideration
was to be given to their interests in taxation and in the land reform.

(5) Responsible cadres were to make a serious study of the Party's class
policy for the rural areas. Mistakes that departed from the Party's policies
concerning the middle peasants had to be corrected, they had to be corrected
through the masses.

Simultaneously with the issuance of this five-point directive, the Shansi-Suiyuan
Sub-Bureau issued the "Directive on the Protection of Industry and Commerce"
to correct the deviations of encroaching on industry and commerce during
the land reform) .